I read the same story from either you or someone else before. Crazy.

i practiced this email address scheme for a short period, then switched to ${my_initials}${few_digit_digest($other_party)}@${my_domain} $other party being a webshop, an online service, an institution, or a person.

then to ${my_initials}${random_few_digits}@${my_domain} to be able to hand out pre-generated email addresses of mine even offline, and bookkeep who has got which random number at my side internally.

this raised the least eyebrows so far.

Ha! Exactly this happens to me too. Had to return some electronics in person, the guy suddenly started fishing if I was some mystery shopper or QC person... because the invoice was made out to [email protected]

That said I've caught and blacklisted quite a few bad actors this way, AND filtering is easier. So worth the occasional weird interaction.

> [email protected]

I did this for a decade and decided it was't worth it, nor the plus in gmail addresses.

It was a ton of effort remembering which address I used (I have multiple domains, too, oh joy).

I would end up with multiple accounts on websites, and support calls were super painful.

Eventually I switched providers and realized that in all that time I literally never found any "smoking gun" of a company selling my info.

And the plus email addresses were super useless because spammers know they can just strip out the bit after the plus. Duh.

In fact, my "real" email address that kept super secret and never ever ever gave to anyone except real in-the-flesh human friends (and thus never got any real email to, lol) was by far and away the most compromised email address. Stratospherically compromised.

Turns out most of the human population do not understand the difference between the local part and the domain part. I’ve had this too. They ask if I work there because I have [email protected]. No , go and read the RFCs…

> That said I've caught and blacklisted quite a few bad actors this way

same! A long time ago I registered an adobe account with the email "<username>[email protected]"

Adobe then got hacked and their account database leaked. Later I got a personalized spam email for a dating site sent to the same +fsck_adobe@gmail email. I complained, and they claimed innocence, saying they got the email from some sort of contact lead service. I then got in touch with that contact lead service's CEO, and of course he had "no idea" how that email got in there. I'm sure they knew very well how it got in there, and after I reported it, they just removed everything after a "+" on @gmail.com emails...

I used to use this company-i-buy-from strategy, but i got accused of fakery a lot, until I tried a new strategy -- [email protected]. So if i were buying from REI, i would use [email protected] or if i were ordering office supplies i would use [email protected]. It's slightly less obvious what you're doing, and raises fewer questions.

People will still ask if you work in the 'interest' sector, but it is still better than having to explain why their company name is in your e-mail address.

Haha yeah I used to give realtors "[email protected]" and I used to get a lot of dirty looks ... I think they thought I was competition

Same... I had my Luma.com account closed and disabled because of my "suspicious" email... had to ask a friend to get it back.

I have used the company-i-buy-from in my email address I give the for over 20 years. It mostly works well, a couple of serious businesses had their data stolen and are now blocked and I use a secondary address for them if I still have a need. Never noticed a spammer would misuse the scheme, even though it would be extremely easy.

The funniest experience was when searching a VoIP provider. One had it in their terms that their name must not be part of the email address. Well, no chance to get my business then.